


With flowers that brighten as thy footstep falls

by Aaronlisa



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Slayer Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 17:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: She knows it's a dream from the start.





	With flowers that brighten as thy footstep falls

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU set during Season Two.

Buffy knows that it's a dream the minute she opens her eyes and finds herself in a moonlight cemetery. The first thing that gives it away is how romantic the cemetery is. No matter how many times she had found herself kissing Angel in one in the past, a cemetery was still a cemetery. But this one is different. 

When she looks up at the night sky, it looks like a gossamer thin piece of silk with bright diamonds strewn upon it for stars. She's sitting on a bench underneath a flowering tree that's full of some sort of night-blooming flowers that emit a sweet and delicate scent. There's a small reflecting pond in front of her that reflects the soft silvery light of the full moon. Although she knows it's a cemetery, the gravestones and mausoleums seem to be far off in the distant from where she is sitting. 

The second thing that makes her realize that this is nothing more than a dream is the fact that there's no creepy feeling threatening to overwhelm her. She can tell that this is a cemetery where the dead stay that way. They don't try to claw their way out from their graves because they were infected by a demon when they died. She sighs in contentment and lets a sense of peace wash over her. For the first time in three years, she feels like she can just relax in the night. She doesn't have to have a weapon and smart remark falling off of her lips. 

She can be just a girl. 

All that's missing from this dream is a dashing dark-haired stranger who will tenderly kiss away all of her heartache. It's as if she's called him forth by the thought for when she looks up, Angel is standing at the opposite end of the pool. She flinches and the sweet scent of the flowers seem to dull just a little bit. 

Even in the sanctity of her dreams, she doubts him. This is after all the Hellmouth and she's lived through her nightmares coming to life once before. He may look like Angel but Angelus looks like him as well and he enjoys tormenting her with the fact that he looks, sounds and smells exactly like Angel does. There's no way of knowing if he's her Angel or if he's Angelus. She shivers as he starts to walk towards her when she realizes that she has no weapon handy. 

She seems powerless to move from the bench and when he stops a few steps away from her, she wants nothing more to wake up from this dream. Buffy doesn't to dream about him, not again, not when she knows that she can't save him and that the only possible outcome is for her to kill Angelus, which means destroying Angel. 

"Buffy." 

His voice is soft and gentle and she wants to believe. She's desperate to believe that its him and not the monster that he's become in the real world. He stands there in front of her and she wants to run from him, to run from this moment, before she has to look at him and see his lips curve up into a malicious smirk as his eyes become cruel and feral. 

Instead he steps closer and reaches out a hand to her. Something compels her into taking it and his hand is warm. She looks up at him. How is this possible? 

"Angel?" Buffy asks, her voice sounds strange to her. 

"It's me," Angel confirms. 

"How?" 

He shrugs his shoulders and she knows in that simple moment that it's not a question of he doesn't know and rather it's a case of he can't tell her. She knows that he has sacrificed something terrible to give her this dream, these few stolen moments. 

She pulls him into he is sitting beside her, his arm wrapped around her shoulders as she presses her face into his chest. He is warm and she can hear his heart beating in his chest. It's impossible but it's a dream, a stolen moment, and she knows that anything is possible in dreams. For a brief moment, the scent of the flowers are sweeter than ever and she feels intoxicated. She wants to crawl into his lap, she wants to kiss him, she wants to never ever let him go. 

Something in the corner of her eye flickers and for a second, there is a scent of decay on the wind. She pulls away from him. Her heart is in her mouth. 

"We don't have very long," Angel tells her. 

"What do you mean?" Buffy asks. 

She's not going to let him go. She's going to figure out away to put him back where he belongs to and to make sure that Angelus is shoved in a cage that he will never break free from Angel looks down at her and gives her a sad smile as if he knows what she's thinking. 

"You can't save me," Angel tells her. "You have to do what has to be done." 

"I am not going to _kill_ you," Buffy tells him. 

Once again something flickers in the corner of her vision and the scent of decay is overwhelming. She knows that someone or something is trying to wrest control of this lovely dream away from her or maybe Angel. And she refuses to let that happen. She wraps a hand around the back of his neck and she pulls him down for a kiss. 

It's anything but gentle. It's hungry, fierce, desperate and she never wants to stop even when his teeth break the skin of her lower lip. When they pull apart, his brow eyes flash yellow at her and for that second, she can't feel the comforting rhythm of his heart against the palm of her hand. 

"You shouldn't have done that," Angel says. 

The soft blooms of the tree above them are starting to wilt and fall to the ground and the once warm air feels cooler. The kiss has changed something and she can feel Angel changing in front of her. He grips her hand hard enough that it causes her to wince in pain. 

"You have to stop _him_ at all costs." Angel firmly tells her. "You can't think about me and the consequences of stopping _him_." 

"You don't understand," Buffy argues with him. 

In a moment, Angel is no longer a soft human and he is the vampire that she's known him to be. His hand grips her hand even tighter and she can feel the delicate bones of her hands grinding together. 

_Oh darling, I understand more than you do. How noble of him to try to save you._

Angel hasn't spoken but he shudders as an insidious voice that sounds so familiar but isn't quite right whispers them in her ear. She's terrified. Angel opens his eyes and they're a scary mix of brown and yellow. 

"If you love me Buffy, you _must_ do this," Angel tells her. "I can't explain anymore than that but you have to forget about me and remember that you are a Slayer." 

She wants to be anything but a Slayer as he lips start to curve in a parody of his smile that he always gave her. That secret smile that he only ever bestowed upon her. 

"I want to stay but I am not strong enough," Angel tells her. 

She can feel the tears in her eyes even as she can hear mocking laughter in the distance. The feelings of peace and romance are gone and all she can feel is that unsettlingly feeling of being in a graveyard at night. She wonders how many of the graves are now full of the restless dead. When she lets go of his hand, how many monsters will burst forth from their graves to devour her? 

"You _need_ to wake up," Angel orders her. 

She wants to. She really wants to but she feels frozen with fear. It's a feeling that's unfamiliar to her. She hasn't really felt this since the Master. 

_Oh don't wake up little girl, I want to play. Don't you want to play?_

The words are whispered in her ears again and her flesh crawls at the sound if Angelus' voice. Angel looks at her and blinks as a shudder goes through him. She can see a flicker. One moment, he is her Angel and the next he's Angelus before he's Angel again. 

"I can't hold him back much longer, Buffy, please wake up," Angel pleads with her. 

He flickers again and it's Angelus gripping her hand, smirking down at her. 

"Aren't you a tasty little treat?" Angelus purrs at her. "Aren't you happy to see me darling?" 

"No," Buffy spits out. 

Angelus winces as he flickers again and it's Angel sitting beside her. There are beads of sweat on his forehead and he looks strained. 

"Please Buffy, wake up," Angel pleads with her. 

The raucous laughter sounds louder and closer. She can recognize the voice of Drusilla singing something in the distance but she can't make out the words. 

"Please," Angel pleads with her. 

She's trying to wake up but she can't seem to pull herself loose. He flickers again back into Angelus who looks at her with a sharp smile, his face transforming from human into demon. 

"How sickly sweet of him to want to protect you but doesn't he know that this can only end in one way?" Angelus ask as he leans forward. 

:How's that?" Buffy dumbly asks. 

"Why in death," Angelus tells her. "Death is your only gift." 

Angelus claims her lips in a violent kiss that's about domination and power. He bites her lower lip with his fangs and laps at the blood. 

He whispers something at her lips that she can't quite make out, the words are garbled as if Angel is trying to overpower him to make her wake up, to make her understand something that she can't quite understand. It's something about death and something about how she belongs to him. 

She manages to pull her hand out of his tight grip, It's bruised and sore. She pushes the pain to the back of her mind as she moves away from him, she falls off the bench to the ground and Angelus smirks at her. 

"You can run but you can't escape me love," Angelus tells her. "I want to find out if you die in your dream if you will die in your bed as well." 

He stands up and towers over her prone body. She feels sick to her stomach. Buffy scoots backwards away from him. She's desperate to break this connection, to wake up, when she sees the truth of his words in his eyes. There's a part of her that knows that this isn't a dream turned into a nightmare. This is real. It's very, very real. He laughs down at her. 

She keeps pushing her body away from her until she falls into the pool. The dark water is cold and she gasps as her upper body splashes into the shallow water. Angelus' eyes glow a malicious yellow. There's no where for her to go, there's no escape and they both know it. 

And then suddenly hands are grasping her bicep from beneath her. It makes no sense, the water is barely two inches deep. There's nothing but smooth paving stone beneath her but she gasps as she's yanked hard from beneath her, Angelus snarls as something pulls her into the water, that has become deeper and colder than it was a second ago. 

She watches with frightened eyes as he lunges for her just as the water covers her body and she's pulled beneath it. The water is cold and it feels oily as it washes over her skin. It seems to go on forever until she's sputtering and she's back on a dry surface. 

Buffy is awake she knows that. She hurts too much for this to be a dream, even a nightmare. She's somehow in a bathtub with Willow standing over her. There's no water but she's drenched from head to toe. And she realizes that she's in the bathtub in Willow's house and not her own. She's almost certain that when she went to sleep earlier, she was in her own bed. 

"Wh-what happened?" Buffy manages to ask. 

Her throat is sore and raw. She shivers from a combination of left over terror and her damp clothes. 

Willow bites her lower lip and exhales before giving her a hand out of the tub. Buffy hates how silent her friend is as Willow wraps her up in a thick, large towel that feels soft against her skin. 

"Willow," Buffy demands. 

Willow won't look her in the eye. 

"I can't really explain it, but I came across this spell that would give you a moment or two with Angel," Willow quietly tries to explain. "I don't know what came over me but I had to cast it." 

"You could have told me about it first," Buffy angrily tells her. 

"No I couldn't," Willow replies. 

Buffy looks at her friend and she can see the tears in Willow's eyes. 

"You don't understand and I can't really tell you, I want to tell you, I want to tell you so badly that it hurts, but I can't force the words out of my mouth. When I try it hurts," Willow tells her. "All I can tell you is that I found a spell and I _had_ to cast it, I didn't have a choice," 

Willow is standing in front of her with her head hung in shame and Buffy knows that something compelled Willow to cast the spell, something had compelled Angel to be there and what that _something_ is, neither could tell her. It terrifies her more than the encounter with Angelus that has left her bruised in the real world. She suspects that if Angelus had killed her in the dream, she would have died in the real world. Buffy shivers. 

"I understand," Buffy lies. 

She doesn't really but she knows that Willow hadn't cast the spell with the intent to harm her. Buffy gently takes Willow's hand into her own. The redhead looks up at her with fear and sadness in her eyes. Buffy knows that things are only going to get worse before they have any chance of getting better. Both girls sigh as realization washes over them. 

"I'm not sure how I am going to explain to my Mom how I ended up here," Buffy quietly says. 

She's too tired to try to figure out any of this. She wishes that she was back in that dream at the very start with Angel. It'd be easier to be there with him than to try to figure out what to do next. Does she spend the night? Or does she go home and try to sneak into her bedroom? Do they tell Giles or Jenny about what happened? Or do they keep this to themselves? Buffy sighs. And Willow wraps her arms around her. She sinks into the comforting hug. 

_Remember what you must do._

Angel's voice whispers into her ears. She doesn't know if she has the strength to do what must be done. She doesn't know if she has the strength to slay Angelus and permanently end any chance of Willow and Jenny cursing Angelus with his soul again. She sighs as she closes her eyes and just let her friend comfort her. In the end she decides to stay at Willow's for the night. She doesn't want to leave the safety of the house to confront what the darkness holds for her.

 

((END))

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Demeter & Peresphone by Alfred Lord Tennyson.


End file.
